Back from the brink, a Worcester church is now thriving

Monday

Jun 17, 2013 at 6:00 AMJun 17, 2013 at 12:56 PM

At the beginning of this century, the Pleasant Street Baptist Church faced a bleak future. With only a handful of parishioners and the building falling into disrepair, members in the early 2000s had to decide if it was time to close the doors and sell the land.

By Alli Knothe TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

At the beginning of this century, the Pleasant Street Baptist Church faced a bleak future.

With only a handful of parishioners and the building falling into disrepair, members in the early 2000s had to decide if it was time to close the doors and sell the land.

“They had discussed if we should let (the church) go and sell the property,” Debbie Mulcahy said. “We decided that it was meant to stay there.”

Mrs. Mulcahy started attending the church in 1980, when she would sit in one of the back pews of the sanctuary with her two young daughters.

She remained a member as the years went by and membership plummeted from 150 to about five people who met around a plastic table in a side room. Most of the church was left unused.

“It was in dire need of work because we didn't have people to keep up the general maintenance of the building,” she said.

The congregation stayed that way until 2006, when the Rev. Noel Williamson, his wife, Shelley, and their children, Dean, now 19, Renee, 16, and Ian, 14, moved from Durham, N.C., to the parsonage behind the church on Pleasant Street.

“It's a lot different to go from having a creek in the backyard to living next to a church in the city,” he said. “That was a big adjustment for the kids.”

In the past seven years, the church has grown to nearly 100 members and hosts events for the community six days a week, ranging from a food pantry to a children's worship service and clothing drives for parents of infants and young children.

“It was like starting a new church,” said Mrs. Mulcahy of Auburn, who now serves on the church council and is active in its mission work.

On a recent Monday morning, about 70 people waited in line outside the church for the food pantry.

They each took a bright green card with a number on it. Most headed downstairs to a large mess hall-type room with long tables and enough chairs for everyone.

They helped themselves to hot coffee and day-old snacks — a doughnut or a few cookies — found seats, and waited until a woman whose nametag read, “Ma” shouted out their number.

A volunteer said eight or nine languages could be heard, including German and Lithuanian.

Upstairs, mothers browsed through racks of baby outfits for their kids who played in a children's area under the eye of a volunteer. Around the corner from the “baby boutique,” adults went through a clothes drive area, which was rebuilt in May by Ian Williamson and his Boy Scout troop.

Wearing a blue-collared shirt, jeans and a nametag, Rev. Williamson, who goes by Pastor Noel, sat with a group at a table near the kitchen and discussed the biblical concept of wealth. In his thick Southern accent he explained that “giving is an act of worship.”

Volunteers and visitors constantly pulled him aside to share stories about their week, ask him for a hand, or talk about personal issues.

“He makes himself available for everything we need him for,” said volunteer and parishioner Dotti Digeronimo of Auburn, who joined the church in about 2010.

“They're growing because they want to help people and share with them in their daily lives,” said the Rev. Ray Allen, who is Rev. Williamson's mentor and director of missions for the Massachusetts Baptist Association.

“It's just been good to watch them as a young family and their first church, and how they've grown in their ministry,” Rev. Allen said.

Rev. Williamson said he knew that the only way to make an impact and bring people to God was to serve the community.

He cited Mark 10:45, and said, “This is a place where you get your hands dirty.”

“It's not the best part of Worcester,” Mrs. Mulcahy said. “We get out in the neighborhood and walk around and pray for the neighborhood.”

The church has been involved in Earth Day cleanups, Columbus Day parades, walks for the homeless and other outreach.

The church hosts block parties during the summer, complete with a bounce house, snow cones, and games for the children. The parishioners also invite the community to the church for the occasional movie night. In the winter, they hold a coat drive, which last year distributed nearly 1,000 winter coats.

Rev. Williamson said a defining point came for the church in 2009 when it was damaged by a four-alarm fire next door that destroyed the Griggs apartment building at 167 Pleasant St.. The church's steeple caught fire.

“We had a lot of water and smoke damage,” he said. Even though the 120-year-old building was temporarily closed, the church still held services and offered help to those who were displaced.

About a year after arriving in Worcester, the Rev. and Mrs. Williamson took in the son of a woman from the church who could not care for her child.

The family has since adopted Zach, who is now 5 years old. They also serve as permanent guardians of his 4-year-old half-sister, Fayth, whom they hope to adopt as well.

Through child-specific foster care, he said, the couple can take in children in their community under special circumstances.

“A lot of lives have been changed in that church,” Mrs. Mulcahy said, adding that the six Williamson children have had a positive impact on the community as well.

“It's like a ripple,” she said. “You throw a rock in the water and it goes out in all different directions.”

While Dean is attending college to become a minister like his father, Renee helps her mother run the children's program, called Awana, which Rev. Williamson likes to refer to as “controlled chaos.”

The program, launched last fall, is held at 6 p.m. each Tuesday and includes a Bible study as well as other activities for kids.

“The kids seem to be settling in,” Mrs. Mulcahy said, and added that she hopes it will translate to more connections and involvement with parents in the community.

“If you can see some kind of positive influence on their children I think that would influence parents,” she said.

While the church has seen a lot of success there is still room for improvement, Rev. Williamson said. Specifically, the church could use a French-language Bible study for some of its parishioners, and “better bridge the cultures in the church.” He said he would also like to do more programs with students from local colleges.

“They go out of their way to do things for their community,” Mrs. Mulcahy said. It's “nothing major, nothing earth shattering, just one step at a time.”